Impact reporting: strategy

Measuring and reporting on the impact you make in the world is a critical step in building trust and engaging all of your stakeholders.

I wrote yesterday about some of the benefits that good impact reporting can bring.

But how do you do it? How do you build an effective strategy for good impact reporting?

Here are five important steps:

1. Start with your organization’s mission, goals, and objectives: What are you and your stakeholders aiming to achieve together?

2. Identify your key performance indicators: How will you know if you're getting closer to achieving your stated goals and objectives?

3. Create a plan for data collection and analysis: Is it enough to just analyze the data that you've been tracking? Do you need to add surveys, interviews, or focus groups? Who’s responsible for aggregating and analyzing this data, and reporting on the outcomes?

4. Create a reporting framework: How frequently will you make these reports? To what audience? And in what format?

5. Implement and evaluate your strategy: As with everything, you’ll be well served to schedule a periodic review of your impact reporting strategy. How much effort is it taking? What benefits is it bringing? What improvements could make it more effective?

I'm sure we could unpack each one of those points, because there's a lot there.

I'll pick some of these apart a little more deeply in future emails.

All the best,
A.